Losing 30 pounds in six months

Yesterday, I wrote a post announcing that I was getting back into a healthy lifestyle routine. Today, I’ll give you background on how I lost 30 pounds in six months without exercising, and why not exercising won’t work for me this time around.

My first newspaper gig was at The Rankin Record in Flowood, MS, under a publisher by the name of Tim Beeland. It was Tim who told me about the best diet in the world, though I would not “get it” until years later.

He subscribed to the Push-Away Diet. In short, once he was done with his plate, he pushed away from the table. If he knew something was bad for him, he pushed it away.

That’s rather simplistic, but it’s the most effective diet in the world. And I would say it is no harder than giving up certain food groups. In fact, with the Push-Away Diet, you can eat what you want, so long as you push food away once you’ve reached your predetermined limit.

All joking aside, this is how I lost my weight. There was no intense exercise program, no fad diet, not cutting out bread and eating red meat like it was going out of style.

Simply put, after I did a little research, it became clear that the simplest approach was to eat fewer calories than what I required. Once I found a way to count calories without it being a crunch on my time or an inconvenience at meals, I was ready to go.

Before I go further, let me say that I’m a political consultant, freelance writer and former journalist. At no time have I professionally worked in the health field. This post includes my thoughts, observations and tips that work for me. They may not work for you — or anyone else, for that matter.

What my research showed

The best diet in the world is not really a diet. It’s a study of how your body gains or loses weight. It’s semi-scientific approach to understanding the relationship between what you eat and the fluctuation in weight.

The Hacker’s Diet was written by John Walker, founder of Autodesk, Inc., and co-author of AutoCAD.

If you are serious about weight loss, I would recommend sitting down and reading it. Mind you, it is a long piece. It has worksheets (that I don’t use) that illustrate the points made and that can help you along the way.

The key points of the Hacker’s Diet are as follows:

• Approach weight loss as an engineering problem. While this may not appeal to anyone but engineers, think of it as a mystery. It can be a coding mystery for you programmers or a simple puzzle for those who like mind games. The point is to approach weight loss (and a lifestyle change) not from the point of view of “this is what I have to do to lose weight” but “what do I have to do to lose weight?” If you go at a diet saying, “The Acme Diet says I can’t eat anything that I like,” then you will fail. But if you take a hard look at your lifestyle, recognize what changes need to be made and then voluntarily make them, you have ownership over the plan.

• Continual monitoring keeps you focused. I have a wee bit of a compulsive personality. The whole idea of weighing once a week kills me. I’m on the scale every day, same time of the day, to see my progress. Granted, I know results do not happen overnight and that many factors can contribute to slight ebbs and flows in one’s weight. That said, it is the daily tracking — at least mentally — of where I am that gives me the input I need to make it through the day in a healthy manner. The Hacker’s Diet prescribes just that. Continual tracking and monitoring — going so far as to plot certain things on a spreadsheet, for the truly obsessive — can help you not only see the effects of the changes you have made in your daily habits, it can also encourage you (or shame you) in your efforts.

• Exercise or the lack thereof. Walker writes: “You don’t exercise to lose weight (although it certainly helps). You exercise because you’ll live longer and you’ll feel better.” This is what sold me on The Hacker’s Diet, and I’ll tell you why. Exercise is important. It does help you live longer, and it does make you feel better. But for exercise to be an effective weight-loss tool, it must involve a rigorous, time-consuming routine for which most average people do not have time. Once I understood exercise’s role, I was free to focus on my eating habits as weight-loss and finding time for exercise became secondary. I no longer felt like I was failing in my “dieting” if I did not exercise. I just felt like, “If I exercised more, I’d feel better and have more energy. But, hey, look how much weight I’m losing. That helps, too.”

One important note. Walker is quick to point out that he is not a doctor or nutritionist. In fact, he says The Hacker’s Diet “is a diet book by somebody who spent most of his life fat.”

Hacking the Hacker’s Diet

As with any diet, it only works if you custom-tailor it to your life. If you can afford a gym membership and have the time to go for an hour or two every day, then by all means do it.

For me, I hacked The Hacker’s Diet this way:

1. Weight Watchers. If you want a mainstream diet plan, this is the way to go. This is the easiest way to count calorie-, fat- and fiber-intake. While the program itself can be expensive, you can find online counters (even for your iPhone or other mobile device) that help you judge the points. A cursory search with Google will produce charts for you to decide how many points you need. And, if you have the spare change, signing up for a month or two to get the materials may be worth it. It was to my wife and me.

2. Home cooking. My wife cooked every dinner. I went home most every lunch. By doing this, we not only saved money, but we avoided the grease and fat of restaurants. If you can’t go home for lunch, take your lunch with you to work. And don’t be daunted by cooking at night, especially you busy parents (like us). There are great cookbooks out there that are geared toward quick-and-easy meals.

3. Don’t forget to cheat. I used the FlexPoints plan of Weight Watchers, which gives you extra points each week. This allows you to cheat. And cheating is not bad, so long as you do it in moderation. For instance, my cheats might be a beer or a glass of wine each night. Perhaps it was dessert at my favorite restaurant. Or maybe I would have that cheeseburger I wanted. It was rarely more than weekly, and it was rarely — if ever — a binge.

4. Adapting to change. You may read the cheating point above and say, “My problem is that I always binge.” That’s because you are trained to do so. If you can make it through that first week of counting points or counting calories, then your body will start to adapt to your new eating habits. The hunger pains can be tough, but cucumbers, radishes and other crispy veggies will do away with them in short order. And once you have adjusted to the new eating habits, the desire to binge will go away. In fact, when you do cheat just a little, your body will not like it.

For me, starting with Weight Watchers helped train me to know what I could and could not eat without taking in too many calories. I learned portion sizes as well. Eventually, I stopped counting the points because eating healthy foods in the right portions became second nature.

And what about exercise?

When I began this new approach last year, I said I would start exercising again. Several months before I had been exercising every morning. I’d ride my bike and then do a light weight routine. When my wife and I moved, I got out of the habit.

However, while I changed my eating habits, I never got back to my exercise routine. For me, it didn’t matter as much during those six months. I weighed 205 pounds when I started. For a guy who stands only 5′9″, that’s a hefty load.

Losing the weight gave me more energy and made me feel better. Plus, it helped my life expectancy.

Now, however, I’m only slightly overweight. My target, which I’ll discuss more tomorrow, is now not so much about weight as it is size. I want to get from my size 36 pants to a size 34. I want to get rid of my beer gut. And I want to have more energy and feel healthier. Losing just a few pounds will achieve the first two, but it won’t do as much toward the second.

My new plan includes a daily exercise plan, but it’s not to lose weight. If I miss a day of exercising, it’s just going to make it a longer day. It won’t really play a part in my weight loss.

Tomorrow, I’ll outline my goals, both for losing weight and for exercising.

And if you take nothing else from this post, take that the two (weight loss and exercise) can be — and for most of us, should be — exclusive, even if they are equally important.